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The Development of a Mass Culture

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product was something far more fragile than its European counterpart. The rice paper used was subject to destruction by insect predators, but the process permitted rapid production. The number of copies that could be gained from a single set of blocks varied with the complexity of the design of the page of print and the quality of the wood used. Cherry was considered ideal because it was so hard. A formal work of Chinese characters could be reproduced many hundreds of times from the same block, while a delicately carved block of cursive type with illustrations was less serviceable over time. Used blocks might be planed smooth and used again, or they could be stored for later printings, though not without danger of warping. The skills and capital required, as Smith observes,5 were dramatically different in Japan and in the West. The Western printer needed machinery and fonts of type, but once things were in place his skills were relatively easily obtained. His Japanese counterpart required little capital, but he did need an extended period of tutelage, which was usually organized along guild lines. Blocks and knives might be plentiful, but those capable of etching a ne and beautifully pointed line were not always easy to nd. It is worth noting that printing was a private enterprise. The shogunate was reasonably vigilant to make certain that publications did not endanger its security and did not offend public morals too dramatically, but it made no attempt to control things closely or to license what was published. There were, however, taboos that became more explicit as the reading public grew. Ordinances issued periodically, especially during periods of reform, were especially rm in warning against works dealing with Christianity, which had of course been under the ban from the rst. Inspection of books imported from China was motivated by the need to prevent Jesuit translations from coming in Chinese dress. A second category concerned anything that might be considered harmful to the public order. Contemporary politics were offlimits, as was discussion of the Tokugawa house. A third category concerned public morals and focused on pornography. There was no censorship, but publishers and authors could be charged with violation of these concerns after books appeared. Typically, punishments consisted of destruction of blocks and other capital equipment to cow the publishers, and use of the cangue, a wooden stock for neck or hands, to keep authors from producing more. These latent dangers were expected to intimidate the enterprise. It seldom proved necessary to invoke them, and outstanding incidents came only during the three periods (1729 1736, 1787 1793, and 1837 1843) when reform and regeneration were heralded as shogunal policy.6 Textbooks used in teaching young people to read were usually didactic, as in the West; in Japan they contained a mixture of Confucian homilies and

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